Paying Homage to Rainbow Jello – Naturally Gluten Free

For Easter weekend, I went home to Michigan to celebrate and eat with my wonderful, loud family. One of our Easter traditions is the Jello Ribbon Salad. My grandmother made this salad every year to perfection, and I don’t think that any of us appreciated the labor that goes into it until this year, when we had to fend for ourselves. My cousin graciously offered to make the dish this year, and I think that she’ll pass the torch to me for next year. Considering this takes about 48 hours and almost constant monitoring to make, it is definitely a labor of love.

This is one of those 1950s hold overs that’s reminiscent of women wearing aprons, men with crew cuts, and kids hula-hooping in the backyard. If you have idle hands, or want to make a crowd-pleaser dessert – take a stab at it!

Update (7/2011) – This is the original recipe from my grandma’s cookbook.

Happy (belated) Easter, and may your family traditions live long and prosper 🙂

FYI – you only need to use red, yellow and blue. The jello will “make” the other crloos (orange and green) itself. My daughter’s Kindergarten teacher loved that when we brought them in and used it as a lesson in color mixing!